Caro's Book On Lbj Is Political Potboiler That Pleases, Offends

April 22, 1990|By Michael S.C. Claffey Book Reviewer

Brickbats have been flying over Robert A. Caro's "Means of Ascent," the second volume of his epic biography of Lyndon Johnson.

Critics have slammed the book for painting an exaggeratedly evil picture of Johnson, the 36th president, as well as for idealizing his opponent in the 1948 U.S. Senate primary in Texas, Coke R. Stevenson.

Caro is indeed harsh in his assessment of Johnson. He describes him as displaying "not only a genius for discerning a path to power, but an utter ruthlessness in destroying obstacles in that path, and a seemingly bottomless capacity for deceit, deception and betrayal."

But no matter how offended LBJ partisans may be, they'll have to admit Caro's book is a thrilling political potboiler. For politics junkies, Caro provides an exquisite fix.

He takes the reader from the privileged inner sanctum of House Speaker Sam Rayburn's "Board of Education," where the barons of the House drank whiskey and made deals, to the dusty town squares of the Texas Hill Country. Underlying the book is 14 years of research by Caro and his wife, in which they sifted through 787 boxes at the LBJ presidential library in Austin.

A former investigative reporter, Caro also wrote "The Power Broker," about the legendary, mid-century political figure in New York, Robert Moses, and "The Path to Power," the first of four planned volumes on LBJ.

The "Path to Power" covers Johnson's family roots, his impoverished youth, and his development into a political whiz kid who won a seat in Congress in 1937 at the age of 28. The first volume ended in disappointment for LBJ, however, as he lost a hardfought special election to fill a Senate seat.

In "Means of Ascent" Caro takes us from 1941 through 1948, when Johnson attained the next step up the political ladder, winning the Democratic Senate primary, which assured his election, by a margin of 87 tainted votes. The next two volumes will cover Johnson's Senate years and the presidency, in which Caro acknowledge's he achieved lofty ends, such as advancements in civil rights, which clash with the means he used to attain power.

The three major episodes covered in the book are Johnson's short military career at the outbreak of World War II, which Caro shows gained tremendously in bravery as it was retold on the campaign stump; how Johnson used his political clout to make his fortune in the federally regulated field of broadcasting; and the 1948 Senate campaign.

Caro depicts the Johnson-Stevenson race as an archetypal clash between the old and new methods of politics. Stevenson, who even when he was governor, refused to have phone installed at his ranch, campaigned in the old style. He had little money, no large campaign structure, and drove from stop to stop, making speeches in each town square.

Johnson, in contrast, brought in media and polling experts, raised money on a massive scale, flooded the airwaves with advertising, and darted across the state in a helicopter.

Despite the use of the new techniques, Caro maintains that it was plain, old-fashioned buying of votes that enabled Johnson to win the primary.

Just from looking at the numbers, it is hard to doubt there was massive fraud. In the six counties of the Rio Grande Valley controlled by LBJ's ally, George Parr, in which Parr "just counted 'em," the vote was 10,323 to 1,329 for Johnson.

But even that wasn't enough. Six days after the election, after the lead had swung back and forth, Stevenson led by a few hundred votes. Then came the late "corrections" from the Valley. With the stroke of a pen, Johnson's tally in Precinct 13 of Jim Wells County was changed from 765 to 965.

That, coupled with additions in several other counties, gave Johnson the 87 vote lead that held up through a fierce battle before the State Democratic Committee. And although Stevenson compiled evidence of widespread fraud and fought on to the U.S. Supreme Court, he wasn't able to overturn the outcome.

* Michael S.C. Claffey is a reporter for the Daily Press and The Times-Herald.